Luke Fickell couldn’t take his eyes off a horror video late Saturday night, and it wasn’t something he’d gotten from Netflix. He lived it, then got a copy free of charge.

It was fresh video of Ohio State’s 35-28 win over California earlier in the day, a game made competitive by two long touchdown runs by speedy running back Brendan Bigelow of Cal. For Bigelow fans, it was a highlight reel, especially that 81-yarder — the longest by a visitor ever in Ohio Stadium — which featured two spin moves before he sprang free.

But for Fickell, Ohio State’s defensive coordinator, viewing it was akin to taking a NoDoz.

“Believe me, I laid awake Saturday night watching that thing while everybody else in the house was sleeping,” he said yesterday.

What was maddening was that no single mistake allowed the 81-yard play or a 59-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.

“The only thing I can say is it is not a lack of effort,” Fickell said.

But it was a lack of tackling. Considering that the OSU defense has given up 13 plays of 20 yards or longer in the first three games, it is of primary concern to coach Urban Meyer.

“Poor tackling, that is the most alarming thing,” Meyer said as he turned the page toward preparation for Alabama-Birmingham this week. “I can’t remember a defense I’ve been around that has given up this many (big plays). That’s got to stop, or we’ll lose a game.”

Now comes “Bloody Tuesday,” as Meyer likes to call the first real practice of the week. Fixing the defensive leaks tops the agenda. Meyer comes from a line of coaches, headed by former OSU coach Earle Bruce, who emphasize tackling practice.

“I know we tackled more than anybody, but obviously it's not getting the job done, so we have to tackle more,” Meyer said. “Instead of one day a week, we’ll probably have to go two now. It’s all about fundamentals technique.”

There’s a chance the coaches’ emphasis on creating turnovers and always trying to strip the ball might be playing a role, he said.

“If you watch one of those (non)tackles, it looked like the guy was going after the ball instead of wrapping him up,” Meyer said. “So we’ve addressed that, and we’ll have more conversation about that.”

The defensive players know it has to improve.

“I feel like (Saturday) it was bad tackling some of the time, and people just taking for granted somebody already making the play and everybody not flying to the ball,” said safety Christian Bryant, who missed a tackle on Bigelow’s second touchdown run. “Like coach Meyer said, we’re going to work on tackling all this week, so I guess that’s something we do need to work on.”

As they step back into tackling boot camp, Fickell said, a word that will continue to be heard is leverage. “The two things that I see is we’ve got to make the ball go east and west, and then we’ve got to have leverage on the football.”

Current Texas Christian coach Gary Patterson wrote a paper on defensive play while he was an assistant at New Mexico years ago, and he addressed the importance of leverage.

“We have one key phrase which sums up what leverage means: inside and in front,” he wrote. “In basic terms, this tells every one of our 11 players that no matter where they are on the field, if they keep the ball inside and in front of them, good things will happen.”

It won’t be something new to the ears of the OSU defenders.

“We try to fly to the ball, contain the offense on the edges — the coaches really harp on us to keep leverage on the offense every play,” Bryant said. “There were a couple of times where we lost leverage, but that’s what practice is for.”